


Halo

by GettheSalt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/GettheSalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam dwells on the loss of an unlikely ally, and an even more unlikely lover. It isn’t fun, far from it, but it’s better than the alternative…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halo

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely inspired by Beyonce's [Halo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC06CMBQLM0).

It’s funny. When you start to lose your mind – or, as in Sam Winchester’s case, fight to not lose it, really – the strangest things start making themselves apparent to you. Or, they start coming to the surface again, after two and a half years, hell, more like three years, of hard repressing. Admittedly, one and a half of those years he’d spent running around all over America without a soul, so no reason to give a damn about those repressed memories, but the fact remained it had been a long road of repression that led to here and now.

When you’re barely sleeping and you’re thinking about anything to block out the devil dogging your steps, there are a few things you start thinking about, a few trap doors in your mind that you know you shouldn’t open (who knows what other hallucinations those doors could let out) but that you open anyway, because, hey, curiosity killed the cat, but you’ve got a pretty good track record with cheating death (something he seemingly isn’t too happy about, but tolerates), so why the hell not?

In Sam’s case, though, it means dwelling on people they lost, maybe a bit too much. People like Ellen Harvelle. He still remembered the day that they’d met her. It was hard to forget finding yourself staring down the barrel of a handgun being held by a surly older woman, and her telling you to get marching out to the bar again. The woman had become more than a contact, for them, she’d become like a surrogate mother. It was hard for her not to have, it was in her nature, and fighting against Ellen Harvelle when she was dead set on something was just resigning yourself to fighting a losing battle. Didn’t mean that Dean didn’t get it in his head now and again to try, but it didn’t get him anywhere.

And with Ellen went Jo Harvelle, her little girl. Hardly little, she was older than Sam, just as tough as he and Dean, headstrong, and smart. Jo was a great hunter, once Ellen allowed her to be. Sam was more than happy to have her at their side the few times that they had. She had become like a sister to him, in ways, and to Dean, well, he’d never actually pursued her the way he would have, not until the end, and even then, she’d stood up to him and shut that train down, choosing her pride over whatever schoolgirl crush she’d had on his brother.

Then, there were those who had chosen to fight beside them, despite previously being neutral or even on the other side. Like Adam. Adam Milligan, who was their younger brother, and who really hadn’t asked for any of this. Adam, as far as Sam knew, was still stuck in the cage with Michael and Lucifer, and hell if that wasn’t a fate worse than death. Adam had been severe collateral damage in all of this, the back-up plan for when Dean held out too long for the angels’ liking. It was hardly fair that he was still stuck, but they didn’t know how to get him out, hell, they couldn’t really focus on getting him out right now, when the world was trying to go to hell in a hand basket… Again.

And Gabriel.

Sam jolted up, straightening out in the passenger seat of the junker car again, ignoring the look that Dean shot him. They’d been driving down this stretch of highway for what seemed like forever, now, and he’d been silent through next to all of it, forehead leaned against the cool glass, eyes half closed. Dean had let him, humming along with the radio, singing every here and there, but not trying to force conversation. Sam would have forced conversation if he felt up to it, but really? He didn’t. He didn’t have it in him right now to fight against the wall that he’d come up against when it came to asking Dean what he was thinking, how he was feeling. He just didn’t have it in him. And he didn’t want to force Dean through that, not right now. Dean was more than definitely having a rough enough time of it without Sam breathing down his neck and demanding talking time. He’d talk when he was ready, until then, when Sam felt strong enough, he’d try to edge him closer to that.

“You all right over there, Sammy?” Dean finally asked after a couple minutes of silence had dragged out between them. The concern in his voice was evident, even with all the trouble that Dean himself was having, the last thing Sam wanted was for Dean to be burdened with more of Sam’s troubles.

Especially, especially not this. Not something that Sam shouldn’t have been dwelling on anyway.

“Yeah, just, uh, disoriented,” He planted his feet on the floor of the car, pushing up from the slouch he’d fallen into in his seat. “Where are we now?”

“About an hour outside of Topeka,” Dean said, eyes flicking from the road to Sam’s face. “You sure you’re all right, Sam? Because you seem a little out of it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said, nodding and pushing a hand through his hair. “i’m just groggy. I’ll be fine in a second.”

“Huh,” Was all Dean had to say, before he reached over to fiddle with the controls on the car radio, turning down the music. “So, tell me about about this case we’re picking up, and why, exactly, you’re hoping you won’t end up the boy who cried Monster when we’re done here?”

Sam sighed, reaching into the back seat to pull out the file folder for this case. They’d been over it twice already, but it couldn’t hurt to go over it just one more time, for clarity, to make sure they were both on the same page.

And anything that took Sam’s mind off the memory of glittering gold eyes and a big teasing smirk right now was a welcome blessing.

By the time they had bunked down in their lodgings for the night (a really classy old place scheduled for demolition), Sam had forgotten about the memories his mind had wandered over earlier when they’d still been on the road. Three hours of interviews with the locals and the police chief would do that to a guy.

“Hey, I’m gonna run out to grab some food from that place a few blocks back. You just want your usual?” Dean asked, straightening up from where he’d spread out his bedroll. The place wasn’t too terrible, but with the way things where, they were giving in to sleeping in the same room – what Sam had assumed was once the living room – rather than being spread out throughout the house, should something happen.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Sam shot him a tight smile. “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Dean squinted at him, a look that Sam knew all too well. He held up a hand before his brother had a chance to continue his thought process and ask if Sam was okay.

“I’m fine, Dean, just a bit tired. Don’t worry, man, really. Just can’t sleep in a sardine can.”

That seemed to do the trick, and Dean nodded, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, and I’ll tell you, I’m gettin’ pretty sick of these sardine cans, myself. Can’t we just go get Baby out of lockdown and quit it with these clunkers?”

It was a rhetorical question, and Dean was gone from the room before he was done muttering, something about paranoids like Frank, and freaking leviathans stealing their faces and messing up their lives. The same old, same old. Didn’t change anything, but Sam understood the value of getting it out now and then. He understood it better than anyone.

Once Dean was gone, though, the rattle and roar of their current ride’s engine slipping away down the street, Sam was left alone with his own thoughts, his own memories. And Lucifer, but he’d gotten pretty good at ignoring Satan and his running commentary.

The real problem was being left alone with his memories of Gabriel. That was something he did his best not to dwell on, because, hell, that was painful. All of it was painful, but Sam hadn’t expected, back when he and Dean had been put through the torture of TVland, that he’d still be having these painful moments, that he’d be filing Gabriel of all people away with Ellen and Jo, feeling his death so fully.

Then again, back when they’d been trapped in TVland, he hadn’t foreseen things like Gabriel popping in to offer his advice on a somewhat regular schedule. He hadn’t foreseen himself texting back and forth with the former messenger of God, cracking jokes about Dean and Cas’ on-going sexual tension, or whatever it was. He hadn’t foreseen just giving in and falling for the guy.

That was going way too far down the rabbit hole of his mind.

Getting to his feet, Sam made his way into the next room where they had set up their home base, and dropped himself in front of the laptop, booting it up and beginning the search for wireless networks to leech off of. The peace of that action only lasted about fifteen minutes, before Gabriel’s memories were bombarding their way back into the forefront of his consciousness. There was fighting a losing battle, and then there was trying to stave off the impact of a battle you’d already lost. Dean still wasn’t back, which was cause enough for concern that Sam was able to shove off thinking about what he’d rather not, turning to his phone and firing off a quick text. Dean got back him almost immediately, that he was just a block away, and that the staff at the diner hadn’t been the picture of efficiency, hence why it had taken him almost half an hour.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief at that. Not just because it meant that Dean was safe and nearly back, but because Dean’s company meant he almost definitely wouldn’t have to deal with the things his mind seemed hellbent on dwelling on.

They spent the next few hours reading and going over the details of the case that they’d picked up. Weirdly enough, all the signs pointed to a yuki-onna. Weird, because it wasn’t exactly snowing, here, it wasn’t exactly cold. But it was the only thing that fit. After an hour of trying to find something else that fit the pattern, they gave up, agreeing to go on yuki-onna as a working idea, and try to find more hints in the morning.

Dean was out cold in a matter of minutes.

Sam wasn’t entirely surprised by that, he’d had more than one nightcap, and he was probably exhausted from the long drive across three states. He, on the other hand, couldn’t fall asleep. He kept getting close, just about there, and then he’d be jolted awake, his mind not on board with the idea of sleep that his body was pitching. He’d been having nights like this more often than not, lately, but tonight was particularly bad. Not because he wanted to sleep or needed to sleep – which he did – but because of the can of worms he’d cracked open earlier. It had been a bad idea to even dare going down that road.

The fact of the matter was that, through texting, Gabriel’s check-ins, the aid that he’d tried to give them even before he’d strutted his way into the ballroom in the Elysian Field hotel, he and Gabriel had gotten close. Really close.

Like, the kind of close that would have had Dean going on a rant for hours.

Sam wasn’t even entirely sure how it had happened, it just had. One night, he’d been in the middle of tapping out a reply to Gabriel’s text sharing what he’d been up to for the last few hours (punishing douchebags in his own way, as per the usual, no apocalypse would stop him from his pagan duty) when the mattress beside him had dipped, and Gabriel had unceremoniously asked, ‘So, when are we going to talk about this thing between us?’

There hadn’t been a whole lot of talking, not that night. Sam had asked what thing Gabriel meant, Gabriel had given him a look and told him he knew full well what thing he meant, Sam had pled being too tired to talk about it right now, and Gabriel had shrugged, curling into the space between Sam’s arms, telling him that was fine, but he was here already, so he was staying, and Sam would just have to deal.

After that, the visits had gotten more frequent, and more nightly, as well as more Dean-less. Gabriel had a talent for popping up around Sam when he was on his own. He’d made a crack about Sam having his own angel shadow now, only a much more suave and charming one than Cas, then he’d written off Sam’s ‘but, Lucifer’ with a wave of his hands and a ‘Lucifer’s not a shadow, he’s a stalker, and he’s not that good at it’.

Against his better judgement, Sam had gotten used to Gabriel’s company, he’d gotten happy with it, he’d started to really feel empty or lonely when nights went by when the archangel didn’t at least drop in for a few minutes.

He’d been like a lovesick puppy, he realised. Dean had been the one to finally point out to him that he sure seemed like he was off on cloud nine sometimes, and that had been when it had clicked. Dean didn’t know about his and Gabriel’s ‘alone time’ – which usually consisted of Gabriel dogging his steps when he was working solo on jobs, though every few weeks, Gabriel would stay through most of the night. What it did while Sam slept, Sam never knew, but he’d always been there, in the same place, if Sam woke up during the night. Sam found that the nightmares he had involving what he’d done, and what Lucifer wanted him to do, were lesser, or not even present, on those nights.

It had taken Dean pointing it out to realise that he hadn’t fallen into a weird, oddly intimate friendship with the former trickster.

He’d fallen in love. In love. With the archangel Gabriel.

A loud grunt from the other side of the room broke Sam out of his revelry and had him shooting up, eyes frantically scanning the room before he realised that Dean was just making noises in his sleep. It had at least saved him from his own thoughts, but, annoyingly, he’d actually been drifting off. Thinking about Gabriel, but he’d been falling asleep. Figured that wouldn’t last.

Dean had dead angel issues of his own, Sam knew. They both did, with Cas. Cas had been their friend, for all that he’d done, he was one of them, and he’d been family. The loss of Cas had hit them hard. Dean had been more than wobbly, he’d been downright backwards and upside down since the little angel that could and did had been overpowered by the leviathans and walked into the lake. That had only gotten worse a few weeks back when… Bobby had died. That hurt more than words could express to think about. It was still raw, fresh and new. They’d lost their father, and they’d lost the man who had been more of a father to them than most, and they were literally out in this alone.

“Well, this is depressing,” Sam muttered to himself, turning over on his bedroll and pulling the blanket back up around his shoulders. They were never going to stop losing people, were they?

Gabriel had asked him that once. Asked if Sam ever got tired of losing his friends, because he had personally gotten tired of watching his brothers and sisters dying, over the course of this apocalypse. Sam hadn’t answered him, at the time. It was a stupid question and they both knew it. Of course Sam was tired of losing people. He was tired of hoping that a day would come when they stopped losing people. He was tired of having his hopes bashed in the head with a boulder. He’d have to be not human for that to not be the case.

By that point, he and Gabriel had come to terms with this thing between them, finally. That had been a long, loud, athletic night, and Sam had found himself thankful for the archangel’s ability to put them where ever he so wished. He’d snapped them to some fancy cabin somewhere out east, and they’d gotten into it. Sam couldn’t help smiling, remembering the fight that they’d gotten into. Of course they’d fought about being in love. Gabriel had argued that Sam was being way too sentimental, yeah, there was something, but the last thing that Sam should be feeling for Gabriel was love, and wasn’t it threatening to his manly man hunter image to be in love with a being that had been and would continue to be in a male vessel for centuries? Sam had waved all that off, stating that he’d never worried about that sort of thing, hell, their dad had known gay hunters who were every bit as manly as him, it was hardly threatening, and he wanted this. He wanted this, because it wasn’t the body (“But it is nice,” he’d conceded when Gabriel had given him a look) but Gabriel, the consciousness, the being, that had so won him over, that he was in love with.

That had done it.

Every rule that Sam had, Gabriel had broken. He had sworn, after Ruby, he wasn’t going to fall again. He wasn’t going to let himself be wooed by otherworldly beings, he wasn’t going to give in to the bad guy, hoping they’d be a good person, in the end.

Gabriel had taken that rule and shattered it into pieces, unceremoniously, without comment, quietly and slowly. He’d found his way into Sam’s heart, and he hadn’t been trying to do it.

Apparently, Sam had done the same to him. For the first time in millennia, Gabriel was feeling something for someone who wasn’t his brothers. He was wanting someone for more than the rush of companionship and the thrill of sex. All these things that he’d whispered into Sam’s mouth that night, the two of them as naked as the day was long, tangled up in blankets and each other, these had been the things that had dug themselves little homes in Sam’s mind and heart, these had been the things that stayed, and that were haunting him now.

If his eyes were pricking with tears behind his eyelids, Sam wasn’t heeding attention to it. He tried to cast his thoughts on anything else; the soft sounds of Dean’s breathing, the quiet howl of the wind around the house, the rumble of cars driving by, and gangbangers hollering as they did.

After that night, Sam had just taken the risk. He had taken the plunge, and let himself love Gabriel, let himself be loved. The world was ending, may as well let go of inhibitions. Gabriel, for everything that he was and everything that he had done, made Sam feel pretty happy, even when the world was going to hell around them. Even if he’d had to keep it from Dean, and from Bobby, and somehow he’d kept it from Cas.

And then Gabriel had sacrificed himself for them. For humanity, for the cause. He’d jumped into Lucifer’s path and took everything his big brother had to give.

That had broken Sam so much more than he let on. Dean had been awake when he finally broke down and cried for the first time, and even if he had suspected something, he didn’t ask. He just put an arm around his brother, and sat next to him until the tears slowed. It had never come up again, but Sam had spent a lot of private time in bathrooms letting it get out before he was ready to face the rest of team free will again. He couldn’t and wouldn’t burden them with this, on top of everything.

And now, so many years later, it could still surprise him. It could come up on him suddenly. Statues of the archangel in churches they investigated, or talked to the clergy in, could send a spike right through his heart. Gabriel, he’d accepted, was something that he wasn’t ever going to be able to shut out, and he didn’t really want to. Especially now, with hell inside his head, sometimes, Gabriel was his saving grace.

He didn’t like dwelling on Gabriel, because of the tendency it had of making him depressive, but sometimes, it was all he had. Dean could only do so much, and Dean had more than enough issues of his own to deal with. Thinking about Bobby and Cas was painful, and Lucifer was always there, chattering away, even if Sam didn’t engage him. Sometimes the only salvation he had was his memories of things like his time with Jess, and everything that he’d had with Gabriel.

And sometimes, thinking about Gabriel was what soothed the savage beast that was his mind. Sometimes Gabriel was that ray of sun in the night, and Sam would cling to those memories, as painful as they eventually became. Especially when he could hear Lucifer scoffing over Sam’s choice. He was made for Lucifer, he was the only one for Sam, as per the divine plan and all that, and it was a bit childish of Sam to cling to Gabriel’s memory.

It didn’t matter, Gabriel was the only one that Sam wanted. He didn’t want Lucifer, he never would. How could you want someone who had damned the planet, damned you, your family, someone who had tortured you for nearly two centuries? He didn’t have Stockholm syndrome. He had a choice, sometimes, on which angel he wanted to dominate his thoughts, and Gabriel would always win, when Sam had agency. That was how it was, and how it would always be.

“Sam.”

For the second time in an hour, Sam was jerking up from being near-sleep, and staring over at Dean’s form on the floor. His brother didn’t seem to have woken up, in fact, he was almost snoring, over there. Lucifer was also quiet for once, nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’d just been hearing things, with how out of it he was, it didn’t surprise him that he was hearing his name. Outside the house was oddly quiet, now, the wind must have decided to stop blowing. He couldn’t hear the gangbangers anymore, nor any cars going by on the street. It was really and truly the dead of night, and he really and truly should put himself back to sleep.

Or would, if the second he settled in again, that voice wasn’t chastising him again.

“Sam, gees, get up.”

That time, he felt it more than heard it. Felt it in his head and in his limbs, barely heard it in his ears. There was really no mistaking that voice, no mistaking that tone of voice.

It sounded just like Gabriel.

Like the aches and pains he was putting himself through weren’t enough already. Lucifer had to pull out the tapes and start playing Gabriel’s voice over and over. That was why he wasn’t anywhere in Sam’s peripheral vision, because he was going out of his way to make Sam believe Gabriel was knocking on his noggin, waiting to be acknowledged.

“That’s kind of because I am, kiddo. Damn, he’s really turned you into a paranoid mess, hasn’t he?”

“Fine, I’m up,” Sam muttered, getting to his feet, bending over to pull his boots on, before walking into the room where their laptops were, staring around. “This is why I am a paranoid mess. You’re not here.”

“Look outside.”

Sam wasn’t sure how he would ever describe the emotion that seized control of his mind and body when those words came through. Panic, hope, despair, fear, happiness, all of it and more. For all he knew, he’d look outside and he’d only see the cage. He’d see nothing but memories of pain, memories of a true and proper hell.

So when he looked outside, and Gabriel was standing there, in the middle of the lawn, arms spread, palms up in a ‘what the hell’ gesture, he froze. He went into a kind of shock, time slowed, stopped. Gabriel was there, that was Gabriel, without a doubt, beyond a doubt. Standing there, oddly illuminated, considering the street light was quite a distance from him, in the snow. It was snowing.

That was the thing that snapped him from his shock. It was snowing, which meant that their hypothesis of what they were hunting being a yuki-onna was not far off. That meant—“Sam!”

He was in motion the second Gabriel’s exasperation broke his internal monologue, running for the front door. He jerked it open in one quick movement, the swollen wooden grinding through the opening as he did, and stepped out, tugging it shut behind him, at least to keep the cold out and keep Dean from waking, if he hadn’t already.

If he had, Sam didn’t really care. He could wake up, he could come and look, he could stare and question all he wanted, for all Sam cared, because he was striding across the snow, arms opening, unable to break eye contact with Gabriel. Gabriel turned towards him, keeping still for a second, before he seemed to give up on the cool and collected front, stepping up quick and into Sam’s arms, his own cinching tight around Sam’s waist.

“It’s you. It’s actually you,” was all Sam was able to get out, not wanting to stop clinging to the shorter man’s form, but stepping back just enough to see his face. To look into those eyes, ancient as existence itself, and know that this was Gabriel. This wasn’t a hallucination, this wasn’t a dream, this was actually Gabriel.

The assurance that he found in those eyes was cool water in a desert, a warm bed after a night in the atlantic. It was the one good thing in such a long few months of absolute crap.

The snow around them was odd. Namely, it wasn’t really touching Gabriel, it was hardly touching Sam. Sam’s hands slid out, over the archangel’s shoulders and down over his back, noting the shiver and press forward that Gabriel rewarded him with.

His wings.

“Yeah, it’s actually me, Sam. Haven’t been for too long, but I thought you should be the first to know,” he smirked, that trademark tilt of his lips, and reached up, curling his hands behind Sam’s neck and up in his hair. Sam didn’t fight it, just let himself be pulled down, let himself enjoy the first soft brush of lips against each other.

Then he was crushing his mouth against Gabriel’s, hands all over, wanting to touch, needing to touch, and needing to be closer. Gabriel was no better, curving up into his body, hands keeping Sam close, lips parting and tongues twisting. It wasn’t sweet, it was desperate and it was full of emotion and it was talking without words. It was Sam screaming how much he’d missed Gabriel, and, frighteningly enough, beautifully enough, Gabriel screaming the same back at him.

When they drew apart, finally, Sam was out of breath. His cheeks felt flushed and he was fighting to catch his breath, throat and lungs stinging as he sucked in the cold air. Gabriel, for all his attitude and joking, was smiling, fingers playing down Sam’s shoulders, over the lines of plaid on his chest, dancing along his hemline to hook in his belt loops and keep him close.

“Missed me?”

Sam huffed a laugh, “More than you can even begin to guess.”

That was when he noticed it, and why he was noticing it now, of all times, was beyond him, but, for once, for true, the background hum of hell in his head… was silent. He couldn’t hear it, not at all, absolutely not a whisper of it. Gabriel’s eyebrows furrowed for a second before he smiled again, head tilting back just slightly.

“It isn’t permanent. It’s probably just a side effect of me being so close…”

Sam wasn’t paying attention to whatever the explanation was. If it was even for a minute, he could and would cherish the silence, as long as it lasted. Cherish it, and wonder about the way the snow was still falling so strangely around Gabriel.

And that was when it hit him.

The shadow of wings was one thing. Gabriel’s wings were always there in some way or another, whether they were out, curled around them both and invisible now was neither here nor there. Sam would bet money on it being the case, considering how warm he was, how embraced he felt, but, thinking back, there was so much more to Gabriel being what he was than wings, and popping in and out of places, and being one of the first creations of God.

Gabriel didn’t have to be what he was to be Sam’s angel. He’d proven, time and time again, before death, in death, and now, after death, that he was, just so strangely enough, Sam’s saving grace, Sam had his angel now. He had his angel again.

It didn’t matter where he looked, it didn’t matter, and it hadn’t, because of all the people in the world, of all the beings in existence, he was the one surrounded by Gabriel’s grace. He was the one who Gabriel had chosen, of all the choices he had, and he was the one that Gabriel had come to, now, newly alive and out in the world.

“I think,” Sam started, a laugh curling through his words. “I can see your halo.”

Gabriel grinned, eyes glittering in the light thrown from the streetlight. “Still as corny as ever, huh?” He leaned up again, pressing his lips to Sam’s in a slow, gentle kiss. He didn’t need to speak, everything Sam wanted, everything he needed to hear, and more, was in that kiss.


End file.
